To meet today's and tomorrow's system bandwidth requirements, the x86 processor architecture and system bus must be revolutionized. To meet this challenge, AMD has introduced the most advanced system bus architecture ever implemented in an x86 processor, delivering the highest system bandwidth for x86 computing platforms.

AMD's high-performance, scalable, and cost-effective bus implementation for the AMD Athlon™ processor is based on the Alpha™ EV6 bus technology licensed from Digital Equipment Corporation. AMD selected this advanced technology to enable optimal implementations of the AMD Athlon processor in x86 platforms ranging from high-end desktop systems to uniprocessor and multiprocessor workstations and servers.

The AMD Athlon processor system bus, operating at 200 MHz, is capable of delivering 1.6 Gbytes/sec data bandwidth, and it can scale to 3.2 Gbytes/sec data bandwidth at 400 MHz. As the first 200-MHz bus for x86 platforms, the AMD Athlon processor system bus provides scalable bandwidth and next-generation features that are not available from other platforms based on 133-MHz bus implementations or even enhanced older generation x86 processors such as Intel's Pentium® III processor.